


Little grey letdowns

by My_Beating_Hart



Series: A Mahariel's Travels [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Gen Work, M/M, Orzammar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 09:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2543156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Beating_Hart/pseuds/My_Beating_Hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The gang finds themselves with a second to breathe just before facing Jarvia in the carta's tunnels in Dust Town. It's pretty much a given that Theron's a little claustrophobic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little grey letdowns

Theron looked down at the knee-high grey creatures, once again feeling that distinctly underwhelmed feeling. At least these ones didn’t seem to be attacking them, for once. He shook his head, and went back to tugging a particularly stubborn arrow out from a dwarven thigh. 

“You’d think with a name like ‘deepstalker’, you’d think they’d be something a lot more impressive and lethal.” He commented a tad bitterly, wrenching the arrow out with a too-hard pull that made him stumble back, each sound echoing in the enclosed space.

Sten barely looked up from cleaning his sword where he leant against the metal fencing before a sleeping bronto, but nodded slowly in agreement.

“They’re more of a nuisance than anything.” Alistair commented as he dragged another stocky corpse into the pile he was making at the other end of the small cave, away from the deepstalkers. No-one knew if they would eat dwarf flesh, and no-one wanted to find out.

“I don’t know why they even bothered to warn us about them.” Theron sighed, looking again at the strange animals.

“Well, otherwise you would have yelped a lot louder than Alistair did when one of them happened to come up from the ground right behind him and attack from there, no?” Zevran grinned as he shamelessly looted his way around the fallen carta members, earning an indignant look from Alistair.

“I didn’t  yelp . It was a noise of surprise. Normal animals don’t burrow like that.” Alistair complained from the back of the room, carefully nudging one of the deepstalkers aside with one armoured foot.

“Or bite your…” Zevran muttered under his breath, still smirking as he fished out a coin purse.

“Regardless, I think this damn carta hideout is worse than the deep roads.” The Dalish elf announced, pulling another arrow free too vigorously and swearing to himself when the shaft snapped in two.

“But we’ve only seen the Aeducan thaig.” Alistair pointed out, digging a cloth out of his pack to try and wipe some of the blood off his armour before it started to dry.

“And?” Theron frowned, looking down at the snapped arrow before he tossed it aside and moved onto another arrow-riddled corpse.

“There are a lot more. Probably in worse state than the one we saw. Abandoned, overrun. Why else would they need the Legion of the Dead down there?” The fellow Grey Warden reasoned, looking over when he saw Zevran try to sneak his way towards the pile of corpses in search of more loot and frowning at the rogue in disapproval until he sidled away again. He really was a crow. 

The Dalish elf grimaced. They’d gotten lost once or twice down there, looking for Lord Hale. He didn’t like the sound of spending even longer down in the winding cave systems. Even the carta hideout they were trying to clean out reminded him a lot of the thaig. Too much.

Alistair cast the tame deepstalkers a wary look as he walked away from them, back towards the long corridor they’d come down.

“I wonder if Leliana will like it if I brought one back with me?” He joked, not noticing how Theron was now standing giving the stone ceiling an odd look rather than finish collecting his arrows, looking tense again. Zevran did, however, and abandoned his attempts at trying to find more ownerless coins, walking over to the ranger silently.

“Denerim again?” He asked softly, and when Theron nodded slowly he gave the other elf’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We will not stay long. We will find Jarvia, return to Bhelen once she is dead, and then I suggest going back to the surface and staying in the camp for the night.” 

Theron tore his gaze from the ceiling and looked back at Zevran, recollecting himself before either of the others saw. 

“Thank you.” The ranger murmured quietly, only loud enough for the former Crow to hear, and then he gently pulled away, taking a deep breath and preparing himself to face Jarvia and the last bastion of her carta at last. True comfort could wait until they were out in the open air again.  


**Author's Note:**

> I get the feeling Sten would be able to ride a bronto into battle, somehow.  
> Anyway, feedback on this would be appreciated, seeing how I'm new to writing (Dragon Age) fanfic!


End file.
